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Tangle 6.6
Tangle 6.6 is the sixth chapter of Tangle. Surrender is demanded and refused. Fighting breaks out again and Armsmaster confronts Skitter. The Undersiders get free and get out of there. Plot Armsmaster demands the surrender of the Undersiders, arguing that despite their effective strategy of turning the heroes' weapons against them, those weapons are now useless, also declaring Regent and Tattletale to have been negated by his use of empathic and psychic shielding. Skitter realises this attempt to deal with Tattletale is based on the false information Tattletale gave to Panacea and Glory Girl. Although Tattletale's attempt to claim she can simply read the minds of other Protectorate members present instead is foiled by Armsmaster's lie detector, giving away her guise as a psychic, she is able to tell that his tinker speciality is condensed technology and taunts him with the knowledge that his team despise him for his desire for promotion outstripping his interest in helping the team or city. This provokes him into attacking and incapacitating her with a shifting, grappling hook like component of his weapon. After Regent and Miss Militia briefly struggle, resulting only in the same situation but with Miss Militia using a machete to hold him hostage, Armsmaster convinces Grue to dismiss his power by pointing out that Miss Militia will not be able to claim she stabbed Regent by accident if there is witnesses. The Undersider's use this chance to portray Armsmaster's attack on Tattletale as unprovoked, using the potential bad publicity of heroes utilising excessive force to put pressure on Armsmaster. When he orders Miss Militia to use a less lethal weapon, Regent takes the chance to kick her in the stomach, disabling her and allowing his escape. Skitter brings all her bugs against Armsmaster and puts her body on the end of his halberd, preventing it from hitting the tiles of the floor to conduct the charge across a wider area and absorbing the electrical pulse with her spider silk costume. By the time he throws her off the weapon, Grue has enveloped him in darkness and the pulse is blocked from killing the bugs again. Armsmaster and Skitter both leave the darkness, Armsmaster killing of the bugs with a third pulse before moving to deal with Bitch's dogs while Skitter is immediately attacked by Velocity. Unlike Battery, Velocity's enhanced speed can be maintained constantly, but he suffers reduced influence on other objects while in this state. Despite the reduced impact of his attacks, he is able to push Skitter back towards an open window through constant carefully placed hits and easily swat off any bugs she tries to sting him with. She is able to call to Grue for support, and the darkness he places over the two of them causes a drastic slowdown in Velocities speed state in a comparable way to it's interference with Shadow Stalker's shadow state. With her bugs able to land now, Skitter pepper sprays him in the face and then has the bugs bite and sting. As he scrambles around to search for water, she hits him in the crotch with her baton and then cuffs his arm to a table, removing him from the fight. Skitter observes the fight as Armsmaster easily knocks down Grue and all three of Bitch's dogs and disarms Tattletale of a gun she had attempted to use to hold the crowd hostage while knocking her out. Armsmaster attempts to get Bitch to admit defeat as a way of reclaiming some reputation for the heroes, however Bitch chides him for his dismissal of Skitter as a non-threat. As he seems to begin to tell the Undersiders about Skitter's true intentions for joining the team, she has Grue cover him in darkness and she makes a dash out onto a patio. He fires his grappling hook, grabbing her around the torso. She manages to wind the extra chain around a railing to force him to cross the patio to her. The two talk about Skitter's infiltration plan, as she argues that he has to let her go to have any chance of salvaging his reputation, presenting the incident as part of his plan when he uses her information to take down both the Undersiders and their supplier in short succession. He refuses, content to take the immediate victory of the team's arrest. In response, she mirrors his earlier statement that the fight was won before they even stepped in the room and releases a swarm of hornets from beneath her costume to directly attack his face. She once again blocks the use of the halberd with her body, holding off long enough for Brutus, ridden by Bitch and the unconscious Tattletale to arrive and jar Armsmaster sufficiently to let her disarm him and throw the halberd over the edge. Skitter is helped by Grue onto Judas as the team make their escape, clearing the darkness to fully display the mess created. Major Events *Battle at the Gallery concludes. *The undersiders successfully escape and humiliate the heroes. Trivia *Falls into the common tropes of Psychic energy having a energy that can be blocked. *The importance of sequestration is shown. Armsmaster wasted time and resources trying to guard against tattletale based on misleading information. *Last chapter of the year. Characters Site Navigation Category:Chapters